Haley Barbour's Wife Is Afraid He'll Be President

While Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour might still be giving serious thought to running for president, his wife isn't too thrilled about the possibility. Marsha Barbour told WLOX, a Mississippi television station, that the idea 'horrifies' her.

It's not her husband's less-than-stellar chances of winning that scare her. No, it's the time commitment that running would require. "Why am I afraid? It's been a lot to be the first lady of the state of Mississippi," she said, "and this would be 50 times bigger." She also estimates that a Barbour Administration would require ten years of their life, though she might be getting a little ahead of herself. Regardless of how understandable her concerns may be, this won't help her husband's chances any, which some already viewed as dubious.

In addition to his wife's trepidation about him running for the nation's highest office, the NAACP also accused Barbour of pushing for a civil rights museum for purely political gain. "This is a media attention-grabber to launch his presidential race," Derrick Johnson, the organization's president, told Salon. But considering that he lauded a segregationist group as recently as December and “Haley Barbour racist” is the second Google auto-suggestion when you type in the governor's name, rehabilitating his reputation on race issues might be a good move. 

Barbour's not even the most popular Republican in his home state. A poll conducted by Public Policy Polling showed that Mike Huckabee would do better against President Obama in Mississippi, winning by 14 points instead of Barbour's 10-point margin. 

His wife is afraid he'll run for president, the NAACP called his efforts to build a civil rights museum purely political, and he's not even the most popular Republican in his home state; all in all, not the best end of the week for Mr. Barbour. But at least his spokesman didn't try to make another joke about Japan.

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